One known area of printing involves the jetting of ink onto paper media. Water content within such inks causes paper to dimple or form sinusoidal-like contours due to the swelling of paper. These contours or “cockle” include peaks and valleys such that the peaks may contact subsequent printheads or other mechanisms during the printing process. Contact can result in smearing, streaking or other damage to the images formed on the paper media. Additionally, the cockle formed in the paper may persist, even after the imaging has fully dried.
Paper that has cockled is not compatible with sharp bends around rollers, tightly wound rolls, or other aspects of some mechanized printing processes. As a result, cockled paper sometimes exhibits permanent creases or wrinkles due to process steps performed subsequent to imaging by the printheads.
Accordingly, the embodiments described hereinafter were developed in light of these and other drawbacks associated with the cockling of paper due to ink imaging.